Producing a Better Software Architecture with Residuality Theory

"Residuality assumes that a random simulation of stress on a naive architecture will produce a better architecture than the traditional methods around requirements engineering, risk management, or reacting to change as it happens, O'Reilly explained: This started out as a curious observation, and for the last 10 years, I have had to build theoretical explanations and experiments to show that this actually is the case. Armed with this knowledge, we can think differently about software architecture and build new tools."

"As students of Western science, our first recourse is to reduce any complex system to its component parts and study those parts in detail. This is the default for software engineers, O'Reilly said. In complex systems, the number of elements and potential interactions and states makes this kind of detail-oriented analysis impossible. Previous generations of architects have tried to reduce the complexity of the business environ"

Software architecture requires mastery of code, mathematics, logic, and human and business systems, and of how those domains interact and affect each other. Business environments exhibit constant surprises and evolving dynamics that can quickly render static architectures irrelevant. Residuality theory proposes applying randomized stress simulations to naive architectures to expose hidden attractors and failure modes. Exposing attractors enables designs to be shaped around enduring system behaviors, improving survival under change and uncertainty. Traditional reductionist analysis, requirements engineering, and reactive risk management struggle in high-dimensional, interacting systems. Experimental and theoretical work supports using residuality as a complementary design and testing approach.

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